Saturday, 7 November 2009

A fairly productive week this week. A little bit of sculpting done on the wererat warrior. The main project for next week is a painting work in progress for the wererat assassin bust. Painting is well underway, first set of photos done ready for uploading and I'll try and get this put on the forums over the next few days - a little behind with it.

All of the Darkhand busts have been shipped out and some of you have already acknowledged receipt - thank you for that and I hope you enjoy painting them and post the results on CMON!

Main news is the latest sculpt which started as a little diversion. I have always been a fan of the fabulous superhero figurines that you can buy and some of the sculpts done on the superhero garage kits over on the Clubhouse forum. So Batman was probably the first superhero i came into contact with as a kid, with spiderman a close second so these guys have a special place in my heart. I decided to do Batman in the end - a bit more interesting costume wise. It is an approx 50mm size bust, but I am considering designing a very fancy attachment to a base piece, that will be top secret though. I hope to post some pics up shortly of the main bust. It took a mere 40minutes to get it to a nicely roughed out stage which i am pleased with and I think I have captured the look of him quite nicely.

Saturday, 24 October 2009

Hello people. I got a nice big box in the post today containing the castings of the assassins busts so they are now officially available, three have sold already, one is being swapped and that leaves me with one spare - contact me if you interested and I can always order more castings if required. The casts are real nice, with minimal mould line showing and little clean up required. Be sure to scrub them with some washing up liquid though to remove the mould release.The bust is priced at £17.50 and shipping costs are as follows:-

USA - £5.50Europe - £5.00UK - £2.40

All prices include insurance and are recorded delivery to be signed for. Please note, regular delivery is not an option for anything I send, especially given the recent strike action by Royal Mail.

On another note, I got a Rat Assassin bust as well to paint up so expect to see some work in progress shots over the coming weeks.

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

I'm now back from beautiful Crete, and the not so Labryinthian palace of King Minos at Knossos. A fantastic place to holiday, I would have liked to have done more trips and travelled more across Crete, but that will have to wait until next time.

The Rat Assassin (Grott) is now available from Grey Matter Figures at the price of £22.50, great value for such a large bust. This piece is entitled "In The Shadows", and you may purchase here. I am still awaiting a quote on the Darkhand Assassin bust, hopefully some news on that later today.

The next piece on the workbench will be the next in the "Something From The Sewers" range of rat busts - the warrior. No proper working title yet! I will be doing some sculpting today, working mainly on bulking out the fur.

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Holiday time, I'm off for a week so no more stuff happening until I get back when hopefully I will get a chance to paint my bust of Grott Chief of Assassins which should be in the hands of the casters as you read this. My Darkhand bust is also being produced. Drop me a line if you want one, there won't be many available though initially!

Sunday, 13 September 2009

Not much to report of late, tooth on the Rat assassin broke delaying postage for casting. Too much carving and filing for it to stand I guess. God I hate teeth.

On a non sculpting note, I now have the floor tiles for my garage waiting to be laid which I hope to be doing on Friday. One step closer to my studio conversion. It will have two areas. One for sculpting, modelling and painting and another for other dirtier and dustier tasks - dry sculpting, machining, and eventually casting and mould making. I'm looking forward to having a dedicated space!! Pictures of course when it's done!

I will be tweaking and meddling with the blog over the next few months, just spruce it up with some nice graphics and features etc and get it looking like I want it.

Tuesday, 1 September 2009

I am looking into getting a quote to get the Darkhand bust into production so if you interested drop me a line. I am hoping to get these out for just under £20 plus shipping. More details when I get the quote back.

I will soon be posting an outline of my sci-fi world setting, working title Middgard. It will not be any kind of game, just a setting to add colour and inspiration to my work. More for my benefit than anyone elses. I would appreciate feedback on it though nevertheless. The idea will be more to help me produce gaming pieces that fit in with any number of games out on the market. I will still be doing busts of characters from this world setting for painters and collectors as well.

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

The assassin bust seems to be well received by the community on CMON and elsewhere - it made the charts in at No.9 and then went to No.7! Nice to see it do well. I am still looking for a potential buyer for it as a few people have expressed an interest in getting their hands on it. Who knows we will see what happens.

Progress has been slow in my sculpting schedule - I have needed to get some DIY work done and there will be a lot of other DIY to come as well. The first job I am tackling is the garage, which will allow me to set up my studio in there. Its purpose is more workshop/gym than garage so it will be nice to have a proper space to work in, if a little cold in winter.

Saturday, 8 August 2009

Well, I just wanted to lay out some thoughts for where I am headed with my plans into becoming a fully fledged freelance sculptor. One of my most important goals at the moment is to get myself a new job trying to get myself 4 days a week off, where I will just have to work three 12 hour shifts. This will give me the time to devote to practicing and getting some actual days I can officially allocate to sculpting.

I really want to design a fantasy world where I can set my characters and pieces that are geared towards use in fantasy games: ie 54mm and 28mm scale work. This will help me get inspired and create more interest for myself and helps tie things together more neatly. Planning my other work has also been on my mind. I'd quite like to get the "Jarhead" (tm - lol) idea out there, just really need to cast in resin and get the core drilled out which I am going to be suggesting to Grey Matter Figures to see if they wish to pursue the idea. I am also planning a range of 90mm faerytale characters, this would be my next big project and I have designed and gathered some concept and inspirational art for Little Red Riding Hood as the first character to be sculpted. Pics below further down the woman shown is a friend of my wife who has kindly said i could use her likeness. After doing an "entry" for minidojo.com's sculpting competition for an assassin bust I decided as well as doing the larger Jarhead sculptures I would have a go at a range of 50mm bust work. So to summarise plans:-

28mm Fantasy - Eventually, based in my own fantasy world

54mm Fantasy - Eventually, based in my own fantasy world

50mm Busts

Jarheads - Large scale sculpts designed as Brush pots and tool holders

90mm - Special Projects

6" - This will probably be the largest I will go to and again will be special projects, at this stage a barbarian conan type sculpt is my main idea for first treatment.

Reference art for Red |Riding Hood sculpt.

Just some ideas on the table for my own purposes and to help me keep organised. I found a neat free portfolio site to present my pictures on so I will post best final pictures on there as well as here. Here is a demo video.

Tuesday, 4 August 2009

Found this amusing video earlier today, worth watching if you are a freelance artist of any kind and carries into many other professions I would expect. Any prospective clients should most definately watch this before dealing with any potential artist you may be considering using for a projectin order to avoid any awkward and embarrassing negotiation conversations!

Work continues on the assassin bust with further pictures coming up later this week in all likelyhood. The bust may be purchased, currently talking it over. If it does get picked up it will in all likelyhood be available for purchase shortly and should provide an excellent challenge to the painters out there.

My picture gallery is based at Coolminiornot.com. This site allows you to vote a score out of ten for each model and leave comments if you wish and the site features astounding painting and scratch built models as well as sculpts from the hobbies top artists. If you haven't visited do so now, it really does showcase some astounding work.

More work to do on my minidojo competition entry today, beginning to have some doubts as to whether I can finish it, but I will post it up whatever state it may be in come the 31st July!!

I received the three resins back today from Grey Matter Figures so work will commence on the 1st August at the earliest on these, just have to decide which to do. The assassin will probably be quickest for me to do as I have it more in my mind what I want to do with it.

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Last night some serious work began on my entry into the MiniDojo sculpting "competition". Why is that in inverted commas? Simply because these guys are working on "spec" (getting several artists to produce work on the offchance that they may get their work selected). The prize money is generous enough though at 500€. The piece is a 50mm bust with the theme of assassins, mine is a half-orc and pictures will be posted when completed. The deadline is 31st July so it is tight time window but the face was finished last night with just the apparel and weapons to sculpt now - should be just about do-able!

Monday, 27 July 2009

2009 was supposedly going to be a year of "artistic development" of my sculpting skills. I set myself a couple of goals and project ideas and things were going well. Then Grey Matter Figures purchased a sculpt off of me, a caracature of a mean wizard, intended as a one of a kind sculpt on a jar to store brushes and tools in, and things took off well in advance of my plans!! The wizard ("Master of Alchemy") is now available from Grey Matter Figures and comes in two parts made in high quality resin with the highest of standards. I am very pleased with the quality of the cast I received and would recommend them to anyone looking for someone to do their moulds and casts, very experienced guys who have worked with some talented people, including Rackham - producing the resins of "The Crow", "Pumpkinhead" and "Ninja Goblin" models.

Now I am working on a new piece - "The Rat King" this sculpt is in a similiar vein - it's a bust and I will be sculpting three variations of it. This will be produced by Grey Matter Figures also and will be available quite possibly around September time. The master sculpt is finished and thethree variations will be the next thing for me to sculpt. For those eager to see, here is a work in progress photo......